Microsoft Seeking Respect for Internet Explorer

Microsoft's Internet Explorer still commands almost 60 percent of desktop PC web browser usage, a figure that has held steady for over a year. But IE is widely viewed as the AOL of web browsers, something that the unwashed masses use only because they don't realize there are viable, even superior, alternatives. And the software giant is hoping to change that.

Before getting to that, I'd like to address one frequently misunderstood fact: Regarding IE usage, not much has changed in two years. IE has always dominated web browser usage, and all the arrival of competitors like Firefox, Chrome and Safari has done is re-level its usage at the 55 to 60 percent range (from 80 percent in its heyday). By comparison, Chrome is currently responsible for 20 percent of usage, and Firefox is at 15 percent. The rest are also-rans.

Source: NetMarketShare

But that's on the PC desktop. IE's need for remaking is due in large part to the same trends that are chipping away at the relevance of Windows too: Users, in ever-larger numbers, are experiencing the web from the smaller lens of a smart phone or tablet. And on those systems, Chrome and Safari are dominant because the underlying platforms, Android and iOS, respectively, are made by the same companies. IE is available on mobile versions of Windows—Windows 8/RT and Windows Phone—but neither system has broad usage.

In other words, IE is the Rodney Dangerfield of the web browser world for two reasons: It's only dominant on the one computing platform that isn't growing (traditional PCs) and is quickly being overshadowed by more mobile alternatives. And even on the platform on which it is dominant, it's not the choice of the technically savvy. It gets no respect.

Regarding this very real issue—after all, perception drives reality—the IE team said on Reddit that it "hopes" it can change IE's reputation. They appear to be focused on starting with developers, though that hasn't helped over the past three IE versions, and the team noted the recent announcements about more quickly retiring older IE versions going forward.

One thing the IE team did consider to address the perception issues was rebranding the browser.

"It's been suggested internally," the team wrote. "[There was] a particularly long email thread where numerous people were passionately debating it. Plenty of ideas get kicked around about how we can separate ourselves from negative perceptions that no longer reflect our product today."

And that rebranding may still happen. "The discussion was a very recent one (just a few weeks ago)," the team added. "Who knows what the future holds :)"

How about pushing IE to popular mobile platforms like Android or iOS? After all, under Microsoft's "mobile first, cloud first" strategy, the firm is busy porting every other app it makes to those platforms.

Not going to happen, Microsoft said.

"Right now, we're focused on building a great mobile browser for Windows Phone and have made some great progress lately," the IE team explained. "So, no current plans for Android/iOS."

It will also not develop a version of IE for Mac, noting that Mac-based web developers can use online tools to see how their sites work in different IE versions.

What about ceasing development of its own Trident web rendering engine and adopting Android's WebKit or a similar effort? Also not in the cards, Microsoft said.

"We are committed to improving our own engine. We love the fact that the web was built on multiple competing (yet interoperable) platforms and believe that this is how it is going to move forward into the future!"

If you are an IE user, Microsoft hinted at a few coming changes in IE 12, or whatever the next browser is called. In that release, it is working to bring desktop IE features to the Modern IE version in Windows 8/RT and vice versa.

"There are some great features that are in the [Modern] version [of IE] (Flip ahead, Reading view, using site images to represent Favorites, swiping to navigate back and forward...) that we'd like to bring over to the desktop," the team noted. It said it has been investigating bringing IE extensions to the Modern version of the browser for a few versions now, and that such a thing could happen in the future.

Discuss this Article 26

I like the aesthetics of the IE browser and would like to use it more but its the little annoying things that always have me using other browsers. One day I can't watch any video clips, the next clicking on some things does nothing. Meanwhile I try those same things on Chrome or even Opera and they work. I wish them good luck, but it's a long road ahead.

I agree. I find IE more reliable but I install firefox because of 1. plugins and 2. color management. You cannot install a plugin in IE without using a toolbar; that is a pretty basic problem with the architecture there.

I hope to God they don't add in browser add-in support to Modern IE. Browser add-ins are still the #1 source of malware on Windows, no thanks to the propagation of companies like Conduit, Mindspark, Tuguu, et al.

Yes, they may be the #1 source of malware on Windows (I'm not going to check whether that's true or not -- it doesn't really matter). But that's because of how the addons work.

Microsoft's model of addons are very different from that of Chrome and Firefox. For example, Chrome's extensions are written in JavaScript, HTML5, and some proprietary additions to JavaScript (so you can do things like access tab information and other current runtime information). But they are also sandboxed. Yes, there is still the possibility of an addon taking user information but there's no way to prevent that. But Chrome's extensions are much safer because they don't have free run of the browser/computer without permissions (and some they cannot get at all).

IE on the other hand is much worse. Just yesterday I was helping my parents because one of them installed a bad addon in Internet Explorer and Internet Explorer wouldn't even work (opening it would cause a dialog to say "Internet Explorer isn't responding" right away). I had them reset Internet Explorer to disable everything they added and it was fixed.

Chrome would have detected the addon not responding and would have offered to kill it and disable it.

Conduit and Mindspark, etc., all hijack your search and homepages without consent and forward fake ads that mimic security prompts that unsuspecting users click on. Not only that, but they even say "search results by Bing", except that they aren't - the first few pages of "Bing search results" are injected fake pages that malware writers pay Conduit to list. So the whole thing is just s money pit for Conduit, and a delivery system for malware writers.

Oh, and BTW: Google INCLUDES Conduit (and various derivative Community Toolbars) in the Chrome extensions store, so GOOGLE IS PART OF THE PROBLEM!

I never said that extensions could NOT do such things as you described, however changing your home page or search provider isn't the end of the world. This can be easily undone, along with easily removing the extension which causes the issue in the first place. Plus, these are the types of permissions that you have to grant to the extension in the first place.

Internet Explorer, on the other hand, has nothing similar to that. The addons in IE do not tell you what they will have access to, because they're basically tiny programs within the browser. But they can access your system too. Chrome extensions can't do that much.

No matter how secure anything is, it can easily be exploited, but in this case it has limitations -- at least in Chrome. IE does not, on the other hand. An extension cannot crash Chrome, it will be detected that it is hanging the browser and turned off. IE does not do this.

Re-branding things is most often a fool's errand that winds up causing far more problems than it solves--look at the crazy decision to abandon the "service pack" nomenclature, for instance. Nuts.

I want a zoomTextOnly feature in IE before I'll seriously pick it up again. It's seems like it would be common sense that when increasing font size on a page via zooming (ctrl + or -) that ideally you might not want to zoom page imagery at the same time...! Nothing is uglier than blown-up bitmaps, etc. But...seems to date only Firefox has seen fit to implement this very nice and useful capability. (Or else I just don't know how to do it in IE.)

I also agree with Waethorn completely--those darned insidious tool-bar add-on programs are the bane of IE, the bane of browsers everywhere, no doubt about it. Grrrr. MSE & Win8 security should automatically treat that crap like malware. I have found that very few seats actually *want* that junk but that they put up with it because they think they have to.

I don't like IE for two reasons. In other browsers like firefox, chrome, and opera, opening a new tab is instant. However, in IE I have to wait a second before I can type my search query. This is infurating to me. The second reason is that on my surface pro when I press the back button in the modern app the app takes forever to load the previous page. If I copy and paste the url into a new tab it loads faster!

I love it ... no one ever makes a distinct between consumers and the enterprise.

Nor does anyone acknowledge that tablets and smart phones are not the same as Mac OS X, Windows, or even Linux.

Tablets and smartphones have brought new customers into the fold. Theses products are still new - with a growing number of new consumers. Tablets and smartphones are NOT displacing PCs. They just aren't. At best, they are secondary devices with a different purpose.

Would it be a good idea for Microsoft to port IE to ARM? Sure. In fact, they already have - with the Surface 2.

Will Apple or Google Play ever offer IE as a choice. That is a lot less likely - no matter what Microsoft might want.

I agree with thundr51. Too many stupid annoying things. MS needs to work on getting all the small annoying things fixed. I frequently have sights hang. Dell server configuration is one of them.

Today I needed to access a DD-WRT router and IE would not let me access the device because the cert was less than 1024 bits. Spent 10 minutes researching the IE issue, found the cause but to not waste more time, Firefox was used and worked fine.

Reading the article where MS states "not going to happen" on several suggestions like other platform support, is real sign and MS in getting like a stubborn old man, inflexible, stuck in the past and inconsiderate of the users needs.

Why don't Microsoft just use Windows instead of IE? I used to think Microsoft diluted their own efforts when they introduced it. I also used to think MS could have created hybrid (universal) UI controls to allow devs to build apps in the cloud from: stream XAML on Windows devices or emit HTML for non-Windows devices? It was just one more incarnation of .NET away. Remember .NET with common business and data layers? If only they could have come up with control types like the ones I mentioned. When I read an article like this, my thoughts go full circle again.

Agreed that Add-ins/helpers are a major issue, I have to deal with more of them than viruses at the moment. Performance is second although I suspect perception is more relevant than actual speed. Next is probably more technical but compatibility, Microsoft do not set the standard for the internet yet every time they produce a new release sites break in their thousands. Once you put people off and they choose another browser they take a long time to come back.

I try out every new version of IE and end up going back to Chrome (and occasionally Firefox). Chrome syncing to my Android phone and home Chrome work quite well as does Remote Desktop for Phone and Android Tablet.

Been very happy with what has happened in IE over the past few years. It's gotten faster, more secure, and added some big features. It doesn't have the security issues that Chrome has with all the add-ons. That's a nice feature, but there's a price to pay.

I think IE11 does a great job of rendering, and I like the clean uncluttered look that results. However, I'm dependent on two add-ons: Lastpass and Pocket which don't work nearly as well or seamlessly as those two (with extensions) do on Chrome. All that is provided on IE are javascript favorites, and in the modern environment things with Lastpass and pocket are even clumsier. In the case of pocket, part of the problem is that pocket provides the absolute minimal support for Windows 8.1 and (also) Windows Phone.

That limits my ability to use IE. Performance (long an IE bugbear) is no longer a problem. MS needs to find a way for IE and 3rd parties to play better together.

I admit to being slightly biased, but if they want to improve IE's standing in enterprises, they really need to improve it's manageability (esp. via Group Policy). They went from first to worst in the last few years--delivering disjointed, buggy policy management and then yanking a major (albeit problematic) policy area without providing alternatives. At this point its much easier to manage Chrome config in the enterprise than IE.

I struggled for years to back IE, using it as my preferred browser. The final straw for me was when I spent two days last Christmas, trying to use the web page to reset my son's password on the Xbox live site. It's an MS site, using the Microsoft Passport/Live/Outlook (whatever the name is this year) authentication - - surely IE is the best browser for the job, right? Even after calling Xbox support and opening a support ticket, I couldn't get any help.

Then I tried Chrome, and guess what? It worked on the first try. My faith in IE was shattered. I called Microsoft to close the ticket, and passed along that the solution to using a Microsoft site was to use a non-Microsoft browser; maybe their help desk can pass this nugget along to the Web dev team.

It would be great if all product groups would be required to use uservoice.com. This is great to give input and see if others agree with your priorities. Visual Studio and Windows Phone have both used this forum.

It seems like most products are skewed towards novice users because of the fear that a new feature might confuse the lowest common denominator user. This is the wrong approach (IMHO).